Page 83 of Ferocious Nightmare

Twenty-Four

Marie directedus towards a safe house she owned, promising us that it was so hidden in shell companies, that Nero would never find us. She'd planned on escaping to it when she'd gotten her daughter back. Even her husband didn't know it existed.

The whole drive there, my thoughts raced.

I didn't know how I was alive.

I'd seen my father pull the trigger. Heard the gun go off. Then there was blackness until I'd awoken, with Aster's face hovering over me.

She’d come back for me, and my father knew it. She’d shown her hand, and now, she was in danger.

We’d arrived, and I'd showered, with both Aster and Marie puttering over me like hens, making sure I didn't reopen my shrapnel wounds. The only clean clothing Marie had for me was a pair of pink sweatpants that I'd had to squeeze into, and Aster had laughed when she saw me in them. After that, I refused to wear the shirt, two sizes too small, that Marie had offered.

Knight and Dante were busy preparing our final plans against my father and when I’d tried to help, they’d both yelled at me to go rest.

So now, I was sitting on a bed in a guest room, looking at Aster. She was staring out the window, a concerned look on her face.

"Aster," I pat the bed next to me, "come here."

She reluctantly turned away from the window, and frowned when she looked at me. “You should be resting."

"I'm too weak to push back the covers.” I gave her a crooked grin.

"Aww, does someone need me to come tuck them in?"

I nodded. “Pretty please?”

Smiling, she turned away from the window. I scooted back and, instead of slipping under the covers, I moved to the middle of the mattress and pat it with my hand, “Sit here.” When she frowned, I said, “Just for a minute. I want to talk to you.”

She'd also showered and changed, and Marie’s clothing on her was loose fitting, leaving a bare shoulder and a cute little space between the top of her sweats and her shirt that flashed her belly as she climbed on the bed to join me.

I sat, cross legged, and she mirrored me. There was an inch of space between us, and I grabbed her legs, dragging her closer to me, until our knees were touching.

“I’m supposed to be tucking you in.” Her emerald eyes sparkled with humor. “You need to rest.”

I pulled up a shoulder. “In a minute.”

She was still too far away.

I needed her closer.

Needed to touch her.

To feel her smooth skin under my fingers and her heart beating against mine.

Maybe it would tell me the secrets that Aster herself might not say.

I pulled her up and into my lap, until she was facing me, legs wrapped around my waist, her chest against mine.

Now I could feel the pitter-patter of her heart race, and I hummed, pulling in a deep breath, the air between us mingling together as one.

Blinking, she stared up at me with those intense, beautiful emerald eyes. Eyes that captured my soul.

It belonged to her, like a pocket of amber, ready to be studied and displayed like a trophy when she deemed to look up on it.

She didn't speak as I studied her face. The freckles that dusted her cheeks, then fled down her neck to her chest.

There were at least twenty, maybe forty. Cute ones, like a splatter of sunshine on her skin.

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